'Vigilante fear' drove pedophile to attack

NOTORIOUS pedophile Bradley Pen Dragon has claimed he was on the run from vigilantes intent on killing him when he assaulted a terrified mother at knifepoint in Perth earlier this year.

Pen Dragon was sentenced to five years in jail, without a chance of parole, for the knife attack on the mother and her 11-month old baby in Mt Lawley in August.

The victim, who wishes only to be known as Shannon, described her terror as Pen Dragon attacked her from behind with a butcher's knife as she sat in her car with her baby outside a suburban hospital.

She suffered significant cuts to her hands as she fought off the 52 year-old, who fled without stealing any money or property, and was arrested at a nearby train station.

As he pleaded guilty and was sentenced by Justice Lindy Jenkins in the Supreme Court of Western Australia today, Pen Dragon's lawyer Simon Watson said he had been acting out of desperation because he was virtually "on the run'' from vigilantes.

Mr Watson said his long criminal history, which included a 13-year stint in a Thai prison for threatening, beating and raping three girls, was well known and he was trying in vain to find somewhere to live on the night the attack occurred.

"He was told his throat would be cut ... he was threatened that bikies would find him and have him killed,'' Mr Watson said.

In a victim impact statement tendered to the court, the 38-year-old victim said her life had been turned upside down by the attack.

She said her family had sold the car she was attacked in, sold its house and moved to a different area in order to feel safe.

Speaking outside court, she said she was happy Pen Dragon was behind bars, but was still feeling the impact of the attack.

"In five years time my little girl is still going to be very young, and it would have been nice to see him released when she was all grown up,'' Shannon said.

"It was a like a scene out of a movie, and I still don't believe I could be so unlucky as to run into a character like that.

"He has a very, very long history, and he is a very frightening man. The community needs to be kept safe.''

Pen Dragon's conviction of assault with attempt to rob was the latest in a criminal past that began when he was 14.

He was released from Bangkok's Klong Prem prison in 2006 after serving 10 years of a 15-year sentence for the violent child sex offences, which dated back to 1993.

He moved from NSW to Western Australia after he was deported back to Australia, and then in 2008 and 2009 was convicted of several counts of possessing child pornography.

It was just 10 weeks after his release from prison on the latest child porn charge that he committed the assault for which he received the five-year jail term.